Miller, “Mormon: A Brief Theological Introduction” (Reviewed by Jaxon Washburn)

Mormon: A Brief Theological Introduction: Adam Miller: 9780842500142: Amazon.com: Books

Title: Mormon: A Brief Theological Introduction
Author: Adam S. Miller
Publisher: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship
Genre: Religious Non-Fiction
Year Published: 2020
Number of Pages: 144
Binding: Paper; eBook
ISBN: 978-0-8425-0014-2 (softcover)
Price: Paper, 9.95; eBook, 9.95

Reviewed by Jaxon Washburn for The Association for Mormon Letters

Mormon: A Brief Theological Introduction is at once both a theological obituary and a practical roadmap for the modern disciple. Its author, the Latter-day Saint philosopher Adam Miller, functions as a kind of literary necromancer, summoning up for the reader voices “crying from the dust”—chiefly that of the eponymous prophet-narrator of the Latter-Day Saint movement’s quintessential sacred text: Mormon.

It describes a world that is dying, dead, and alive all at once. For Mormon, this was an ultimately unforgiving world which he learned to forgive. The visual elements described within the Nephite civilization’s waning moments are among the most striking in the entire book of scripture and Miller doesn’t allow the reader to pass them by easily. Instead, they are brought front and center, serving as a window of what is to come. Of course, this is not to suggest that all will meet the same fate of dying in a cataclysmic ultimate genocide. However, Miller’s consistent thesis is that all must die, even the gods. All must, in the end, sacrifice everything. The way of Christ is to willingly face and perform such a sacrifice. The way of the damned is to curse and resist it, futile as it may prove. Miller provides a guided exposition of Mormon’s recorded embodiment of this reality.

Perhaps unknowingly, the world caught a small glimpse of this message through the COVID-19 pandemic that intensively characterized the year of this book’s release, as well as the “new normal” established indefinitely after. The kind of denialism Miller so often speaks against can easily be witnessed obstructing the fragile nature of life, along with this and many other fronts. For Miller, the most existentially apparent of the apocalypses to come is that of the ever-compounding threat of the global climate crisis. Indeed, I am prone to agree with him, though it should be noted that his direct engagement with this particular topic is captured in a brief afterword. The vast majority of his work deals with theology made practical for the life of the believer.

Using history and theology as means to an end, rather than ends to themselves, Miller structures his analysis of Mormon’s book across twelve chapters, which themselves form a kind of themed microcosm of the Nephite prophet’s grim mortal sojourn. Juxtaposing Mormon against the backdrop of bloodshed, godlessness, social upheaval, and total annihilation which he witnessed and ultimately fell victim to, Miller draws out the most powerful lessons his life story has to offer—ones which have gone largely unrecognized in common readings. These more powerful readings touched upon forgiveness, upon abandoning seeking revenge in any capacity. Miller is able to take a text fraught with warfare and violence and compellingly argue a message of pacifism and peacemaking in the world. Make no mistake, Mormon was clearly not unilaterally opposed to defensive violence. His was no romanticized account of war either, but the strained gasps of a dying nation who, in the end, had completely succumbed to an ethos of bloodshed and vengeance.

In his typical style, Miller’s commentary on Mormon strikes as a mix of continental philosophy, process theology, applied Buddhism, and Latter-day Saint Restorationism. He persuasively speaks to the Samsara wheel of suffering, joy, creation, destruction, and recreation which composes the reality of the cosmos, though is not at all out of place within Latter-day Saint thought. Far from getting caught up in theoretical abstractions, Miller’s commentary is grounded in both text and practical application. Mormon: A Brief Theological Introduction should be considered a potent explication of Mormon’s personal history. As a work of Christian theology, Miller succeeds in putting forth a work that consistently centers the demands of the Christian Gospel in the life of the disciple. Facing our own existential crises and coming apocalypses, anything short of total consecration to the cause of Zion may not be enough. In preparation, I recommend visiting Miller’s work here again, and again, and again.